Luke Skywalker marching with the Irish Regiment? Crazy – but true.
Almost.
I’ve wondered more than once about things I’ve learned from Google searches. Pretty useless stuff most of the time, but still… all those questions that would never have been answered back in the day. Now I’m guessing there are very few original questions left. No matter what I type in, Google pops up with the rest of the sentence, presumably based on some other person’s online query.
Today it was an Irish song that set me to wonder. It’s a Mick Moloney song easily sung along with after hearing it a few times. Some sort of a story there, but I never paid much attention. This afternoon, a part of the lyric caught my attention in between the chorus line I was belting out – In the Regular Army O! (and if you’ve not heard me loudly singing Irish, you don’t visit near enough…)
Irish songwriters apparently have an affection for the mild-mannered O… sticking it at the end of any line to make the rhythm and meter work.
I figured the song had to do with the Irish Troubles, but that was dispelled with a closer listen to the very first verse.
Three years ago, this very day,
I went to Govner’s Isle
For to stand against the cannon
In true military style,
Thirteen American dollars
Each month we’d surely get,
To carry a gun and a bayonet
With regimental step.
So – I Googled it.
It turns out the song is no traditional Irish pub ditty, although it’s been around long enough to qualify. It has more to do with all the Irish immigrants who stepped off the boat and into the Union Army during the Civil War.
Ned Harrigan and Tony Hart were Irish-American equivalent of Burt Bacharach and Hal David back in the l800s. The Regular Army O was part of a Broadway musical, and as Wikipedia describes Mr. Harrigan: His career began in minstrelsy and variety but progressed to the production of multi-act plays full of singing, dancing and physical comedy, making Harrigan one of the founding fathers of modern American musical theatre.
Although Mr. Hart died at a younger age, Ned Harrigan continued in theater for many years and the New York Times devoted a page to the “good old days” of Broadway at his death in 1911.
And how does Luke Skywalker fit it with the Irish Regiment?
In 1985, a musical celebrating the partnership, Harrigan ‘N Hart, opened on Broadway, based on the book The Merry Partners by Ely Jacques Kahn. Harry Groener portrayed Harrigan and Mark Hamill (Luke of Star Wars fame) played Hart. The New York Times liked the memories of the songwriting team better than the show, which was described as dull and “aimless.” Audiences apparently agreed and the show closed after four performances.
Just as well, I imagine. Hard to think of Luke Skywalker declaring in a thick Irish brogue “I am a Jedi, like my father before me,” and of course adding, “so ye best step back or I’ll be poking ye with me wee light saber.”
As for the Irish Bistro, we’ll be serving from the Regular Menu O tomorrow, so come visit!
